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Tag: Personal

One of the perks at my job is a yoga class twice monthly and I love our yoga teacher for her insistence on good practices. At the start of every session, we set our intentions for the class. I particularly love this component because it allows me to feel connected to myself and how I’m feeling (a check-in of sorts). After this, the torture workout begins. 🙂

Anyway this week’s theme has been gratitude. Here are some things I’m grateful for:

Gratitude that I’ve made huge strides in my personal health journey (some day, I’ll write about this but I’m too chicken to pen this under my real name).

Gratitude that I work with people that I enjoy being around and gratitude that they share the same sentiment!

Gratitude that I’ll be done with my student loans in less than a month! Freeing up that cash-flow feels wonderful. Thanks to a combination of bonuses and savings, I paid down almost $40,000 in less than 3.5 years. Yeah, I get to toot my horn a little bit here. 🙂 Next up, killing the car debt (own a hair over $6, 000 on this asset).

Gratitude that I have pretty good health insurance to handle some upcoming events in this calendar year.

Gratitude that I have the support of M, his family, and of course my family

I posted on Twitter about regret being an ugly emotion. I’ve had a lot of that feeling lately and I’m quite sick of how it makes me feel. The what-ifs are the worst. However, what keeps me going is the belief that everything happens for a reason a.k.a. my experiences in the past will be of use for me in the future. A relative passed away this month and I’ve been in a reflective and somber mood since it happened. I haven’t cracked open a bible in a long while but if I did, Ecclesiastes would mirror my dark mood. “Vanity upon vanity […] all is vanity” My heart is still heavy.

In a bit of a funk but I know this wave will pass. For whatever reason, fall semester always makes me a feel a bit gloomy, grumpy and everything in between. Something about this season .. Anyway, I’ve come down with a big case of senioritis. I’ll be officially done with my CS curriculum when this semester is over and I am already looking forward to the semester’s end! I’m taking more classes than I need and right now, I am really struggling to justify why I should remain in the extra class. *sigh* In any case, I’m pulling my first all-nighter of the semester because of extremely poor planning on my part and a healthy heaping of bad luck i.e. illness. I was ill over the weekend and couldn’t do much so I left my work for the work week and by this post, you can already guess that it didn’t get done. So, here I am.

Life is a series of forking paths. I took one not too long ago and I’ve been tormented by the what-ifs and unfairly focusing on the negatives instead of reminding myself of the very valid reasons for choosing the path I did. Diff’rent strokes for different folks. The time for apologies is over and I need to embrace my life & decisions loudly.

In personal news, I’ve decided to take the plunge and apply for my US citizenship. This means dealing with red tape which is already driving me nuts. I wasted 50 minutes of my life on hold (I called the Vital Records office) and didn’t even get to talk to anyone! So, I’m not looking forward to the paperwork but I know that getting my citizenship is long overdue. Come next year, I’ve promised myself that I shall take a trip. Not sure where I’ll be going but I’m sure I’ll surprise myself. 😀

Other than the blues and having to stay up late tonight, I’ll be fine.

So, classes are done for the Spring! I had a rough time with one course in particular (Mom, don’t worry!!) but I think I’ll at least pass the course.Â I’m not in Georgia for the summer because I snagged an awesome internship halfway across the country (Oregon)! Matt’s incredibly jealous because Oregon is very scenic and has trails/mountains/parks to die for. 🙂

Life is good. Matt and I celebrated our 5th year of marriage and boy, have we grown together. He seriously completes me and makes me stop to smell the roses (this actually happened in the non-metaphorical sense). 🙂 I’m enjoying my current course of study and I am about to embark on a 3-month long internship where I’ll be doing nothing but coding. I’m understandably nervous. I mean, the other students in this internship program have some serious pedigrees (IVY league, well regarded CS & Engineering schools, etc) but I’m trying not to be too intimidated. In fact, I think I’ll be better off taking advantage of the smarts of this group and learn from them! Maybe their smarts will rub off, who knows?

Not all is hunky dory in paradise. There are ups and downs but I work through them and take things step by step. I still have trouble being extroverted although people who talk to me in public fall for my acts of extroversion. 🙂 I do have a neat story to share (about that).

At the PDX airport, an older white lady caught up to me after watching me from a distance and asked where I was from. I told her I was Nigerian and turns out she lived in Nigeria (in the 80s) as the child of missionaries! We got to talking and I learned quite a bit from her. She even gave me a hug as we parted ways! I love meeting people although the first step (stepping out and saying ‘hello’) is usually the hardest. In this case, she took the leap of faith and reached out to me & both our lives were enriched from the information exchange that ensued! Anyway, I’m hoping to use this blog more to keep my family posted about my shenanigans in Oregon. I’ve reunited with an old college acquaintance and I’m super excited about my yet-to-be-had adventures! 😀

I’ve kinda pulled back from sharing so much on the internet but I will say this: I’m finally indulging my curiosity around/about computers and software in general. I’ve been privileged to attend a few events which have led to some doors opening which, depending on my performance, will lead to even cooler opportunities. Needless to say, I’m pretty excited. In this latter part of the year, I’ve stepped outside of my comfort zone and was rewarded with a loving and awesome group of friends. Next year, I’m looking forward to broadening my horizons even more.Â Matt finished up an internship which he learned a lot from and is looking forward to wrapping things up. Overall, life is good.

I sort-of abandoned this blog when I got my blog at JaneTalksTech.com off the ground. In a way, I feel I may have painted myself into a pretty spot because I have this self-imposed pressure to churn out long-form and super useful content.

Without too much introspection, I think I already know what to do in order for me to get my tech-writing mojo back: use my non-tech writing outlet to decompress.

In a nutshell, I’ve been pretty much the ‘same’. I’ve got some sticks in the fire that I can’t use just yet but I’m convinced that they will be pretty awesome when done. One of those is a web app idea I have; it’s not a small feat but luckily I’m collaborating with my brother, Nick, who is a kickass programmer! 🙂 I already have the perfect domain name purchased and working on creating a blueprint. Wish me luck! Oh and I renewed my cellphone contract with AT&T and switched to Android. Best. Decision. In a long while! In fact, this post is being penned on the 4′ screen of my Motorola Atrix. Visit janetalkstech.com to understand why.

So, if we are friends on Facebook, you may have seen the pictures that were taken of Matt & I by photographer, Blane Marable . Matt was hesitant at first because he is NOT into staged scenes. However, Blane was able disarm him and get him to smile even! LOL. It lasted for over 30 minutes and Blane took over 200 frames! Crazy. I haven’t been with my laptop today so I won’t have ALL of the pics uploaded just yet. In any case, I will keep this post short and sweet. More later. Ciao! Posted by Wordmobi